Speaking about why there was never a sequel to the blockbuster First Wives Club, which starred many of our fantasy best friends (Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton), Hawn blamed the men who run show business.
“The big money goes to kids and young men — big tent-pole movies, which are expensive but have a great return,” Hawn said.
“The smaller movies aren’t being made as much. For instance, First Wives Club. We were all women of a certain age, and everyone took a cut in salary to do it so the studio could make what it needed. We all took a smaller back end than usual and a much smaller front end. And, we ended up doing incredibly well. The movie was hugely successful. It made a lot of money. We were on the cover of Time magazine.”
However as Hawn pointed out, despite the success of a female led film, the (male) honchos pulling the strings weren’t sold.
“But, two years later, when the studio came back with a sequel, they wanted to offer us exactly the same deal,” Hawn revealed. “We went back to ground zero. Had three men come in there, they would have upped their salaries without even thinking about it. But, the fear of women’s movies is embedded in the culture.”
Sadly there hasn’t been some kind of female led revolution in Hollywood since First Wives Club came out in 1996. Women are still underrepresented on the big screen, and when they are in films they’re likely to play mother to a man the same age.
A recent study found that in 2014 women comprised just 12 percent of the leads in the top-grossing films of 2014. There are fewer women as protagonists in the film industry than there were in 2002.
Earlier this year Jane Fonda commented that the gender bias still lurking in Hollywood led to an endless loop of men patting each on the back. It is one, she said, that women had to “fight” to change.
“The studios are run by men and they have the bottom line to meet and they give jobs to people like them,” Fonda told a Women at Sundance event in January.
“We have to shame the studios for being so gender-biased. We have to prove we can be commercial,” said Fonda. “We have to fight real hard to get women in positions of power and remember there are no set rules. Kathryn Bigelow made a guys’ film [The Hurt Locker], while her ex-husband James Cameron made a feminist film in Avatar.”
In the spirit of women fighting for each other, here are some of the women led films that we’re looking forward to this year:
Sisters – Real life BFF’s Amy Poehler and Tina Fey together again on screen (!) for a film about two sisters who throw one final party before their parents sell their childhood home.
The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 – Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen is a feminist role model if we’ve ever seen one.
Fifty Shades of Grey – don’t pretend you haven’t seen it already (the film has broken all kinds of box office records) and as problematic, clunky and embarrassment inducing as the film is, it stars a woman, is directed by a woman and it’s based on the books written by a woman.
Trainwreck – Amy Schumer writing and starring in her own film? Yes please.
Cinderella – Fairy tales might not be to everybody’s taste, but a film starring Helena Bonham Carter, Lily James (Downton Abbey) and Cate Blanchett in evil stepmother mode? Ooh goody.
